WikiLeaks Rival: OpenLeaks Launches Today?

According to the Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, several former employees of WikiLeaks have defected in protest against the controversial leader Julian Assange. They are now planning to start a similar site on their own. The new service has been prepared for a long time and today OpenLeaks will be lauched. This will also be a site for whistleblowers and leaks, like WikiLeaks.

“Our long term goal is to build a strong, transparent platform to support whistleblowers–both in terms of technology and politics–while at the same time encouraging others to start similar projects,” says a colleague wishing to remain anonymous.

”As a short-term goal, this is about completing the technical infrastructure and ensuring that the organization continues to be democratically governed by all its members, rather than limited to one group or individual.”

Several of those who helped to launch WikiLeaks has previously expressed their issues with the personality of Julian Assange, which they believe is beeing too headstrong.

Assange is now in custody in London, accused of sexual abuse in Sweden, and several former employees disapproves of the way he has handled the case. Assange have argued that the accusations from Sweden is part of a smear campaign against him, orchestrated by the U.S. authorities to stop WikiLeaks from publishing several classified U.S. documents.

The people behind OpenLeaks emphasizes that they have the same goals that WikiLeaks do.

“The two organizations are similar in that aspect that both are focusing on providing means for whistleblowers to anonymously provide the public with information,” one insider says.

But unlike WikiLeaks, Openleaks will not receive and publish information directly for the public eye. Instead, other organizations will access the Openleaks system and in turn, present their audience with the material. Documents will be processed and published by various collaborating organizations.

“We intend to split the work in a way where we handle only the anonymity and receiving end of the information,” says another colleague.
“As a result of our intention not to publish any document directly and in our own name, we do not expect to experience the kind of political pressure which WikiLeaks is under at this time. In that aspect, it is quite interesting to see how little of politicians’ anger seems directed at the newspapers using WikiLeaks sources.”